


there was a time when i stood in line for love for love for love

by buckybunnyteeth



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Armando is a trans girl, Canon-Typical Violence, Family Feels, Grief/Mourning, Implied Relationships, Multi, Not Beta Read, Past Abuse, Past Torture, Protective Siblings, Trans Character, not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 20:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12991683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckybunnyteeth/pseuds/buckybunnyteeth
Summary: "I am someone who did not die when I should have died." - Anne Carson.Or there were three Ramon siblings once. Once. Now there are two brothers and a memorial.





	there was a time when i stood in line for love for love for love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sibley (ferns)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/gifts).



> Warnings for; canon-typical violence, grief, liberal use of source material which I have tried to fit into the canon show.

"I am someone who did not die when I should have died."

\- Anne Carson, from Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides

 

 

Across the wall, a monster flinches as a hand vibrates through a scared boy’s chest. They fall apart, stop their function, and must be hurt into moving again. It is the first time, in a long time, that their heart has raced in their chest. They rage, hands ripping through those they have not been commanded to end, and suddenly the monster remembers a name and a place and a face not her own.

 

 _Cisco_.

 

They hurt her until she forgets again. And again. And again.

 

 

 

 

“Did you think you could stop me? I'll burn the world down to save her.” ― Jennifer L. Armentrout, Origin.

 

 

_He is running but he can’t feel his feet. Someone is running in front of him, always moving too fast for him to see their face clearly._

_Curling black hair and a varsity jacket._

_Are they running from something? He can’t remember. He trips over a rock, but he can’t feel it and the other person laughs, joyous and bright._

_Something bad is about to happen._

_“Come on Cisco, they’re just over here!”_

_He opens his mouth and a child’s voice comes out._

_“Wait up! My legs aren’t as long as yours, Armando!”_

_“You’re just slow, Franny!”_

_“Don’t call me that!”_

_“Franny!”_

_“Don’t call me that, Armando!”_

_“Oh, okay! Eat my dust, Hermano!”_

_“No, wait! Wait for me, please! Manda-”_

 

Cisco jerks awake with a muffled scream against his pillow. It takes a moment for the panic to fade from his system, for his eyes to focus on the weave of the fabric in front of him and make him realize he is in his apartment and not a scary sepia-toned woodland. That he isn’t thirteen years old and terrified.

 

He sits up slowly, taking in deep calming breathes. His whole body is trembling. It’s been months since he last had that dream.

 

Despite the early hour he picks up his phone and sends a message.

_Coffee?_

 

He gets up and brushes his teeth before he gets an answer.

_Urgh its earlrs_

_Ealrs_

_*EARLY_

_Meet you at jitters in 10, freak._

 

Ten minutes later he walks into Jitters and Dante is already there slumped over a table with a thick pair of sunglasses on and one hand wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee.

 

“I ordered yours for you,” he mumbles, barely moving.

 

“Are you drunk or hungover?”

 

“Both, neither, I don’t know-” He shrugs and winces, “Pick one.”

 

Cisco chuckles and sits down across from him. He reaches over and eases the glasses from his face.

 

“It’s still dark outside, hermano. You don’t need these.”

 

Dante flips him off but otherwise doesn’t move. Eventually, someone brings over Cisco’s coffee and they drink together in companionable silence. His relationship with Dante has been a lot better ever since the earth-2 Dante incident. Cisco has realized blood doesn’t make a family, you choose your family. And Cisco made the choice to be a better brother, a kinder sibling. Even if his brother is a walking talking disaster in progress, he loves him, and he needed to choose to put effort into their relationship.

 

He thinks Dante made a similar decision because he can tell his older sibling is putting effort into seeing him, talking to him without fighting, and is overall just trying to take the antagonism out of their relationship.

 

It’s so much better now, almost like before-

 

“I’ve been having the dreams again.”

 

Dante pauses mid-sip.

 

“Yeah.”

 

Cisco bites his lip and nods.

 

“It’s always the same,” he admits in a near whisper, “Always dark, running through a forest.”

 

“It didn’t happen in a forest Cisco,”

 

“I know, I know.” he sighs and pushes a hand through his hair, “I remember.”

 

Dante’s eyes go sad and Cisco looks down into his coffee cup.

 

“Do you think is symbolic?”

 

Dante whips out his phone before Cisco can answer, face crunching up in focus.

 

“Says here; Being lost in a forest or the woods in a dream may symbolize being lost or confused -- you need to trust your instincts to find your way out, or you may be exploring your unconscious to “find yourself”.”

 

“Find myself?” Cisco says skeptically, “I think I’m as found as I’m ever gonna be, Brother.”

 

“And this one says; Being followed in a forest can mean that something that occurred in the past is happening again in your current life.”

 

They both go silent as that sinks in. after a moment Dante looks around and leans in.

 

“It-it wasn’t like a Vibe was it? A vision? Because if it’s happening again Hermano, we need to get out of town, get on a plane somewhere fucking else I swear-”

 

“No, it wasn’t a Vibe,” Cisco interrupts before he can get too carried away, “It felt nothing like a Vibe.”

 

“…what if it’s like with Abuela?”

 

“Oh, here we go.”

 

“-she totally dreamed about that car crash Dad was in before it happened, and she always gets these bad feelings-”

 

“I’m not having old lady visons, Dante,” Cisco rolls his eyes.

 

 “Ok,” Dante relents, “You know, I could come stay with you if you need me too. Just-”

 

He can’t finish his sentence. Cisco can fill it in though.

 

Just so you know I’m still alive.

 

“Yeah. Yeah, that would be good actually.”

 

“Good, because I just got fired-”

 

“What?!” Cisco squawks, “What did you do?”

 

Before Dante can answer, Cisco’s phone goes off.

 

“Superhero stuff?”

 

“Yeah,” Cisco quickly replies to the text and downs the rest of his coffee, “I’ll pick you up later, yeah?”

 

“Yeah. Stay safe, brother.”

 

“You too, and don’t think I’m letting this go.”

 

“Letting go of what?”

 

“Haha, you’re so funny.”

 

“Says the guy with thousand-dollar shoes.”

 

“I needed them for my- you know what, screw you.”

 

“Love you too, brother.”

 

 

The rest of the day is spent dealing with a criminal who has a freaky suit that can turn him two dimensional and make him four-dimensional- the whole thing was so frustrating Cisco can’t even process how cool the whole situation was.

 

After it’s all gone down he slumps over in his lab, world-weary and hungry.

 

A large, warm hand presses between his shoulder blades.

 

“You did good work out there today, dude,” Barry tells him, affectionate chuckle laced all through his voice, “We kicked ass.”

 

Cisco hums in agreement, too tired to raise his head.

 

There is a shifting sound and then a weight settles against the desk beside him.

 

“Are you doing okay, Cisco?” Iris asks, hand settling on his arm.

 

“Yeah,” he sighs, finally raising his head to look her in the eyes, “I’m fine. Just haven’t been sleeping great these past few-”

_Years_.

 

“-days.”

 

Iris shares a look with Barry over his shoulder and then says very softly;

 

“You could come home with us?”

 

Barry’s hand leaves the center of his back and trails up, so he can fiddle with Cisco’s curls. Cisco feels himself go ridged as he remembers why he has been avoiding the couple.

 

And now it’s too late to run. He can’t even open a breach without them noticing.

 

Because how do you have sex with your two best friends- your two very married best friends- and then pick up and get back to your normal ‘before you had sex with them’ life? Because Cisco now knows what both of them look like sated and sleepy and smiling like goofs. He knows what they sound like, feel like, taste like. How is he meant to exist, carrying all that knowledge around under his skin?

 

“I can’t tonight,” he swallows and looks down, away from Iris’s piercing gaze.

 

“Cisco,” Barry sighs, “We just-”

 

“I have to pick Dante up,” He announces, cutting Barry off and getting up out of his chair, cutting him off from their touch, “We have a thing.”

 

“A thing?”

 

“Yeah, Barry, a _thing_!” he snaps, “I have plans with my brother all right!”

 

The room drops into horrible silence. He drops his head into his hands.

 

“I’m sorry,” he all but whispers, “I shouldn’t have … I’m just- I’m tired. I just need …”

 

He doesn’t know what he needs. Today is a day when he doesn’t know what his personality is, what he is meant to be like. He feels forced. Who is Cisco Ramon anyway? Today he doesn’t have an answer to that question.

 

“I need to go.”

 

“Cisco, wait, I’m sorry-”

 

“Cisco, really we-”

 

He opens a breach and is outside before they can finish.

 

 

He takes one of the cars from the lab (an unconscious sign to Barry and Iris that he is coming back) and picks Dante up.

 

From outside a Biker Bar.

 

Dante slumps into the passenger seat, smelling of whiskey and with a bloody nose.

 

Cisco is so floored he just starts the car automatically and begins driving in silence. Dante cracks eventually, voice slurring slightly around the edges.

 

“I thought it was a leather bar.”

 

“Oh god.”

 

“Turns out bikers do not like being hit on.”

 

“Who would have guessed.”

 

“Well, maybe this guy was into it, but I don’t think he wanted his buddies to know. He had this long blonde hair, and these big brown eyes, oh god and his ass-”

 

“I really _really_ need you to stop talking right now.”

 

Dante chuckles and smiles over at him. After a moment his smile turns from cheeky to wistful.

 

“Thanks for picking me up, hermano.”

 

“Yeah, well, I promised.”

 

Something sad flashes across Dante’s eyes.

 

“Did you tell your super friends where you were going?”

 

“Well, its ten at night and I’m actually an adult so, no.”

 

Dante just looks at him. Cisco sighs.

 

“I couldn’t. you know I can’t talk about this man. What happened-”

 

He chokes off mid-sentence, throat closing as he suddenly feels close to tears.

 

“I know,” Dante says softly, “You’re the only one I can even think about talking to about it and … and I still can’t.”

 

Cisco hums and keeps his eyes on the road.

 

The streets they drive down change from vague to familiar. The corners where they would get into trouble with the other neighborhood boys, the ditches and parks where they scraped their knees when they fell off their bikes, the abandoned lot where they would play baseball, and soccer and act out Star Wars scenes with tree branches for lightsabres.

 

They grew up here. Blood, sweat, and tears soaked into the dirt of this place, binding the Ramon boys here forever. For better or worse.

 

The neighborhood houses thin and the high school comes in to view.

 

Cisco parks across the street from the football field, across from the sign that reads PATTON HIGH SCHOOL. He turns off the car, presses his head down on the wheel and they sit there in silence. Its winter and the only light on at this time of night is the foggy yellow of the street lights. The only light besides the bright spot shining across the road.

 

Dante cups a hand around his neck and squeezes lightly.

 

“Come on,” he says, sounding entirely sober, “I’ve got you.”

 

Cisco thumps his head once lightly against the steering wheel before gathering all his strength to push himself out of the car.

 

The cold wind bights against his skin and catches in his throat. He wishes he wore something warmer than this old wool-lined denim jacket. It’s so old now most of the wool has worn through, and the elbow patches that had been new in 2002 are now pinpricked with holes. It's boxy and doesn’t fit right, made for someone bigger and it lets in the cold. But this was her jacket.

 

“It’ll snow later.”

 

He expects Dante to say; ‘ _no shit Sherlock_ ’ or ‘ _was that a vision, Raven_?’.

 

But instead he says;

 

“She loved the snow.”

 

Cisco shudders out a breath and it looks like dragon smoke in the air.

 

They walk across the street, shoulders brushing. They walk towards the warm bright light spilling from the display inlayed in the outside wall of the sports center. The memorial. They stop on the edges of the spilled light and take it in.

 

Trapped behind glass is a group of trophies, a football, a red ribbon, and a line of photos of a happy smiling girl. Square-jawed with soft crinkling eyes and hair that didn’t know when to stop curling. Varsity jacket, football kit, hanging around a group of other kids, and one with two younger boys that have her exact smile.

 

Painted in gold across the glass is;

 

ARMANDO RAMON.

 

MAY HER LIGHT ALWAYS LEAD THE WAY.

 

The horrible bitter part of Cisco hates the morbidity of a shrine built for a ghost. He doesn’t say that though. Because as much as he hates it, it brings him a kind of comfort to know that his sister was so loved, so beautiful that even a shitty high school couldn’t deny her memory. He leans forward to brush a cobweb off the glass.

 

“Remember how we had to petition those fucking school board fucks to get the writing changed?” Dante whispers through a savage, cruel, grin, “Every kid in the school signed it. Every freaking one.”

 

“And the football team staged walkouts,” Cisco remembers back to him, “And the cheerleaders did a phone tree until the principal had to beg them to stop.”

 

“…they really freaking loved her.”

 

Someone has laid flowers down in front of the glass. A bouquet of Forget Me Nots and Orange Blossoms. She always leaves the same ones.

 

“Yeah.”

 

Armando Ramon had been eighteen when she disappeared. About to go off to college. About to start her life.

 

It’s been over a decade now since that horrible day when his number of siblings was halved. So much has happened since then. For the first five years after their family had some hope that she would come back. Their father bought Dante and Cisco down to this very memorial almost every week. And then one day he just stopped. Their parents became distant and desperate, flickering between those two emotions too fast for Cisco to process. Cisco pulled away and Dante clung to them and their emotions got misplaced and directed at each other. Cisco doesn’t think he was ever happy in that house again after that day. He loves his family, god does he love them. But it took a while for him to remember how to exist with them now there was a big gaping void hovering above them always.

 

It's better now. He looks over at Dante now, his face illuminated by the fluorescent light. And he’ll make sure he keeps what he has, this time.

 

“You’ve been to other worlds, right?”

 

Cisco almost startles, Dante asks this so out of the blue.

 

“Other earths, sure.”

 

“…have you ever met one of her out there?”

 

Cisco shakes his head, looking down so his hair curtains around him.

 

“No. I haven’t looked.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because then I’ll get angry. Angry that other Cisco’s and other Dante’s got to keep her. That she got to live, and go to College, graduate and get a job, and hell maybe even marry Terri-”

 

“Okay, okay,” Dante interrupts, sounding a bit frantic, “I’m sorry, I didn’t think about it like that.”

 

“I just- I just can’t afford to be angry.”

 

“Anger is normal.”

 

“Anger doesn’t pair with being a superhero. It gets people dead.”

 

“It’s not human to repress this shit, man.”

 

“Yeah,” Cisco laughs bitterly, teeth beared in a horrible facsimile of a smile, “We’ve been standing here for twenty minutes, Dante, and we can’t even bring ourselves to say _her fucking name_.”

 

Dante goes quiet.

 

They stay standing there.

 

It begins to snow.

 

“What would she think of us.”

 

Cisco looks up into the slowly falling snow. He blinks back tears.

 

“I don’t think she’d recognize us.”

 

The snow falls heavier. Dante turns away from the light. He pats down his pockets, but he gave up smoking months ago.

 

Cisco sighs. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a comic book.

 

“Wolverine,” he tells the picture behind the glass, “except it’s a girl now, Laura Kinney. You’d like her.”

 

He leans down and tucks the flimsy paper under the bouquet.

 

They walk back to the car and Cisco throws an arm around Dante’s shoulders.

 

“Crash on my couch tonight.”

 

“I don’t-”

 

“I’d feel better having you there. Maybe I won’t have nightmares.”

 

Date looks at him, white snow stark in comparison to his jet-black hair.

 

“Okay.”

 

“Cool. Big belly burger?”

 

“You are the best brother I have ever had.”

 

“I’m the only brother you’ve ever had.”

 

Dante laughs, somewhat sadly, and lays a wet smacking kiss on his cheek. Jerk.

 

_Dead leaves under his feet crunch as loud as bone._

_“Wait!”_

_“Come on, Cisco!”_

_“No- I’m not fast enough, Mando!”_

_“You gotta keep up!”_

_“I can’t!”_

_“Come on!”_

_“No- Mando! Mando!”_

Cisco jerks awake, mid-scream, in Dante’s arms.

 

“Cisco!” he hisses, “Cisco wake up!”

 

Cisco chokes out a noise that sounds inhuman to his ears and braces himself against his brother’s shoulders, stopping him mid-shake. He’s panting like he was really wondering, and he feels so cold. Dante notices the shivering and wraps a nearby throw blanket around him. He pulls it close and leans his forehead down on his brother’s shoulder.

 

“Same dream?” Dante asks.

 

He hums in affirmation, unable to form words. Dante sighs.

 

“It’s about six in the morning,” he strokes a hand through Cisco’s hair and it abates the shivering somewhat, “You got about five hours sleep.”

 

“Th-that’s more than last night.”

 

“But not enough. Can you go back to sleep?”

 

Cisco shakes his head and Dante nods.

 

“Didn’t think so. You wanna get up?”

 

He wants to go to the lab. But he doesn’t want to see Barry or Iris. He doesn’t know if he feels more embarrassed at how he acted, or more tired and irritated than he did yesterday. He doesn’t think he can face them without being an asshole again.

 

“Breakfast?” He suggests.

 

Dante grunts in agreement and extracts himself from his brother.

 

“The diner downtown?”  

 

“Best eggs in Central City.”

 

“Urgh, don’t mention eggs.”

 

“You’re not even hungover.”

 

“No. Eggs are just gross.”

 

Cisco laughs but its weak. He can’t get the fog of the dream out of his head.It'ss clogging up his brain and his ears, and he feels wired. Like there is an electrical current running under his skin.

 

 

They breach and then walk down to the diner, the world still mostly asleep and cast in dark blues. The sky is only just starting to pink with the sunrise. Cisco slipped into the fraying denim jacket again, this time over a hoody. He doesn’t usually wear it, but with the dreams and the anniversary he just feels- he doesn’t know how he feels. He feels tired. He feels sad. He feels on edge like something is going to happen, but maybe that’s just from him fucking up his relationship with Barry and Iris.

 

Maybe he just wants a hug from his big sister. And this is the closest he’s got.

 

The walk into the diner and hustle their way into a booth before a couple of Lawyer looking types can get it. Dante smiles his sly smile at them, winks at one who blushes alarmingly, and then they leave in a huff.

 

“Ah. Its always good to earn your seat.”

 

“You’re a jerk.”

 

“You did it too!”

 

“Yeah, but I make it look good.”

 

Dante just shakes his head, trying to look like he’s not laughing.

 

“How’s that roommate of yours,” Cisco asks as they read the menu.

 

“Malcolm? He’s okay.”

 

Cisco raises an eyebrow.

 

“Okay, Mal may be a little weird, and he may have watched me sleep a couple times-”

 

“He what?!”

 

“- but he’s a decent guy, too gay to function but a good guy. He pays his rent on time, he never has freakishly loud sex when I’m trying to sleep, and he’s even cooked for me a few times … it wasn’t edible but still, it’s the effort that counts.”

 

“Okay,” Cisco says cautiously, “Alright.”

 

“And he’s got these abs man, I accidentally walked in on him when he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and damn-”

 

“Okay, not alight! Really freaking not alright!”

 

Dante laughs and flops back further on his side of the booth.

 

“What about you?”

 

“I don’t have a roommate.”

 

“Nah, but you have a smoking hot bounty hunter girlfriend … and a couple of married people are obsessed with you.”

 

Cisco glares at his brother.

 

“What? I’m just saying.”

 

“Things are going good with Cindy,” he relents after a tense moment, “She’s been busy on her earth, troubles with her boss.”

 

“Uh huh, and does she know Barry and Iris are courting you like an upper-class maiden.”

 

Oh, she knows more than that.

 

Cisco remembers how it felt, when he was completely at Barry and Iris’s mercy how his powers reached out across the universes, how he felt Cindy feeling him, felt her touch on his skin like she was touching him instead of herself. It- uh enhanced the experience somewhat.

 

“Yeah, uh- she’s fine with it.”

 

Cindy is his soulmate, but she can’t always be around, both practically and emotionally. She encouraged him to make a move in Barry and Iris saying; “I think you should. And hey, maybe one day I’ll join you.” Which cause Cisco to spit his soda across the room because that sounded like every nice dream he had been having for the past few months … or maybe years.

 

Cisco would be happy to die that way. Hot and sweaty in between the three people he was ass over heels for. He should put it in his will.

 

Dante kicks him under the table and smiles luridly at him. Cisco flips him off.

 

A cantankerous old man comes over to them eventually, takes their orders through a series of grunts and then ten minutes later they are in food heaven.  Cisco has scrambled eggs, waffles, and hash browns with a chocolate milkshake. Dante gets pancakes, with extra pancakes, whipped cream, strawberries and chocolate syrup. With black coffee. The monster.

 

They eat in relative quiet, enjoying the inane talk radio and easy listening music being pumped through the diner.

 

“You doing anything today?” Cisco asks when the food is all gone.

 

“I think I’ll go see Ma,” Dante says, “See how she’s holding up.”

 

“Hmmm.”

 

“I’ll tell her you said ‘hi’.”

 

“Yeah. I’ll see her at ….”

 

“The memorial I know.”

 

They pay up the tab, let a group of high schoolers take their booth and leave the dinner. The streets are still lined with slowly melting snow as the sun starts to break through the clouds.

 

“You need me to breach you anywhere?” Cisco asks, reluctant to leave his brother just yet.

 

“Nah, I’m gonna walk around for a bit. Do some Christmas shopping.”

 

Cisco bites his lip before he can ask ‘ _with what money?_ ’.

 

“Okay, I’ll see you later.”

 

Dante slaps his back with a smile.

 

“Sure thing, hermano.”

 

Cisco waves him off and starts walking in the other direction.  He thinks he’ll drop by CCPD, he has a few ideas for tech upgrades that the Captain may be interested in, and Singh is always good for a laugh. And maybe he’ll see Joe if he isn’t home with Cecile and Bea. And, hey, maybe he can drop it into the conversation that he’s struggling to balance his grief and residual trauma with the feelings he’s having for his very married daughter and her husband. That’ll go down well.

 

He rubs a hand over his face as he walks across the square. Maybe he should avoid talking to Joe too until he sorts this out. His social circle is getting alarmingly small.

 

He’s halfway across the square when the buzzing under his skin increases alarmingly and shoots up his spine. He doubles over with a shout as it spikes inside his skull. He feels like his whole body is vibrating, like when he’s traveling through a breach, and then suddenly- violently- he’s in a vibe.

 

_He’s standing in a burning world, explosions and screaming echoing all around him, smoke and rubble from collapsed buildings. Then through the smoke two figures limp into view, the shorter one supporting themselves on the others shoulders, one of their legs twisted and bleeding. Brown hair dark eyes- eyes cast in pain- a flash of red behind them-_

 

Cisco breaks out of the vibe with a gasp and takes off running, ignoring the concerned bystanders around him. He runs to the nearest alley and breaches to the lab, dropping down in the middle of the West Family and Caitlin, all of whom were mid donut chew.

 

“Phis-co!” Wally shouts through a mouthful of pastry.

 

“Incoming!” he shouts, already running towards the gate room.

 

Barry and Wally beat him there, Joe, Iris and a frosty looking Caitlin are hot on his heels. When they get to the room everyone but him stops on the platform. Cisco keeps going, walking up to the suddenly appearing breach just in time to catch Breacher and Cindy as they fall out.

 

“Help,” Quell croaks, a thick clump of blood falling out of his mouth, “Help her please.”

 

Joe comes over to support Quell while Cisco takes Cindy from his arms.

 

“She’s unconscious,” he relays to Caitlin, voice shaking, “She’s got a head wound, her legs broken, looks like her tibia.”

 

“Her shoulder,” Quell groans, face pressed into Joe's shoulder, “its dislocated. So is mine.”

 

“Okay,” Iris announces in her boss voice, “Speedsters get them both into the med bay, be extra careful with them. Then speed Caitlin there.”

 

“Wait, speed me-”

 

They have both sped off with Breacher and Cindy and come back for her before she can finish her sentence.

 

“I’m going to call our Doctor friend at Central City General, Caitlin’s going to need help,” Joe says, pulling out his phone, before looking at Cisco seriously, “Then you’re going to explain what the hell just happened.”

 

Cisco nods back, unable to tear his eyes away from where Cindy just disappeared through the door. He can feel her blood soaking through his shirt.

 

Iris, still in boss mode, walks over to him and clasps his hand tightly.

 

“Come on,” she says seriously, “She’ll need you.”

 

He squeezes her hand back and follows.

 

 

There was a time, so long ago, that Cisco really wasn’t used to the site of blood. Dealing with large quantities of blood just wasn’t in his job description.

 

Of course, now, he can’t go a week without seeing blood.

 

He watches the surgeries and thinks he’ll be seeing it in his dreams from now on.

 

“Cisco,” Joe pulls him out of his haze and he turns around to see the rest of the team staring at him.

 

“What happened?” Iris asks.

 

“I-uh,” he gulps and shakes his head, “I don’t know. I just got pulled into a vibe when I was walking down the street. Cindy and Breacher were somewhere- somewhere batshit scary might I add- and I could tell they were hurt and on their way there. After that, I know as much as you guys do.”

 

Joe and Barry share a significant look.

 

“Quell and Cindy are two of the toughest people we have ever come across,” Joe says, eyes shining with worry as he looks in at the operating theatre.

 

“Who could possibly hurt them this bad?” Barry asks, “What?”

 

Cisco bites his lip. He has no idea.

 

It takes six hours. Caitlin and Dr. Kohli come out, exhausted and almost collapsing.

 

“Stable,” Caitlin all but whispers as she folds herself into a chair, still in her scrubs, “And awake.”

 

“That serum you gave us really helped, and it appears to have sped up their healing,” Kohli says as she shrugs out of her scrubs, “Where did you get it?”

 

“We, uh, kinda stole it off some aliens?” Barry winces.

 

“Oh.”

 

“But don’t worry, those two aren’t from this dimension, so you’re probably not medically liable or anything.”

 

Kohli just looks at him for a long moment and then turns to Joe.

 

“I think I’m ready to go now."

 

“Yep.”

 

“Call me, if their conditions change.”

 

“Thank you, Mila,” Joe says softly, as he guides her out of the room, “I really owe you.”

 

“Well, Cecile is family so,” Kohli shrugs, “What’s illegal surgery between family members?”

 

Joes rich laugh echoes back at them down the corridor.

 

Cisco is in the room and over at Cindy’s side before anyone can say anything else. She blinks up at him, expression foggy but aware.

 

“Hi,” he whispers.

 

“Hi,” she smiles.

 

“You kinda scared me.”

 

“Payback.”

 

“When have I ever scared you that bad.”

 

“Savitar.”

 

“Oh. Okay.”

 

Cindy chuckles and reaches up to twist one of his curls around her finger. Quell, across the room, growls. He’s sitting up in bed, still in all his leather, still scary as a living fuck.

 

“Aw, hush,” Cindy says, “We almost died. I’m allowed to be gushy.”

 

The image of the world on fire comes back to Cisco and all his worry returns. He looks out into the lab and nods are the others who file in slowly, giving Cindy warm smiles. Hell, Wally even smiles at Quell, who just looks confused.

 

“I saw you,” he says after all the pleasantries are over, “In that- in that place. That horrible place. What happened?”

 

Cindy straightens up in her hospital bed and shares a serious look with her father.

 

“That was our world,” Quell tells them, tone somber.

 

“Part of it anyway,” Cindy clarifies, “The Wastes, beyond the city. We were attacked, and we made the mistake of fleeing there. It was an ambush.”

 

“Fleeing from what?” Barry asks.

 

Cindy looks at her father who growls, “No.”

 

“They saved our lives-”

 

“And telling them will get them killed.” He lurches to his feet, stumbling slightly, “Might as well put a bullet in them right after telling them, that’s how much good it will do.”

 

“Daddy-”

 

“No,” Wally catches Quell under the shoulder and rights him, “No we need to go. Now.”

 

Which is when every alarm in the lab starts screaming.

 

“Meta in the downtown area!” Iris yells as she runs over to the computer, “Reports are that police are on the scene- officers down and civilians injured. Suit up!”

 

The Flashes nod to each other and in flashes of lightning, they are gone.

 

“Initial reports are describing a flying meta with a mask and a scythe.”

 

Cisco goes to leave but Cindy grips his arm almost to breaking point. He looks down at her and for the first time in his life, he sees her scared.

 

“Don’t go.”

 

“What?”

 

“Don’t. Go.”

 

“Cisco!” Iris shouts.

 

“I have to,” he tells his love softly, “I’ll come back.”

 

“You won’t,” she says through a sheen of tears. The painkillers must be taking effect.

 

“I will,” and with that, he leans down and kisses her with everything he’s got. He pulls back, gives her one last smile and leaves to get his Vibe on.

 

 

When Cisco gets downtown it looks like a war zone. Cars are flipped over, people are lying wounded everywhere, and Wally is being held up by the neck by one of the scariest mother fuckers Cisco has ever seen.

 

Tall, with a shock of chunkily cut black hair, a red and silver muzzle that matches their armor, and ragged red cape. Oh, and they have a giant freaking scythe.

 

“Hey ugly!” Cisco shouts, “Drop him!”

 

He shoots a vibe blast at them before they can respond, jolting them back so they drop Wally… who doesn’t immediately run away.

 

And now Scythe-y-mc-scythe-face is looking right at him.

 

“Oh, crap.”

 

The meta raises their arm and shoots a barrel of energy right at Cisco. He raises his arm up and shoots off a blast back, their different colored energies meeting in the middle and-

 

-suddenly Cisco is flying backward into the side of a police car.

 

His head cracks against the glass and he drops to the ground, head spinning. And the big scary meta floats over to him, cape swirling around their legs and weapon.

 

Behind the mask, the freaking muzzle, their eyes glow red. So does the blade of their scythe when they point it down at Cisco’s chest. Bone deep feeling of tired wells up in him, and Cisco’s mouth blurts out the first thing on his mind, without his permission.

 

“Aw fuck. Dante’s gonna kill me,” he slurs, “Was meant to see him- Aw, Dante.”

 

Above him the meta jolts, their head flicking to the side in rapid motion. Then they lower their scythe and say in a heavily garbled robotic voice.

 

“Cis …. Cisco?”

 

His heart stops in his chest.

 

“Who are you?” he asks.

 

The meta stops floating, feet touching down on the ground, and reaches up towards their mask-

 

-which is right when Barry’s thrown thunderbolt connects with them, throwing them a hundred feet sideways down the road.

 

“Are you okay?!” Barry yells, patting Cisco down frantically, “Did they cut you?”

 

“I’m- I’m fine, they didn’t hurt me much,” Cisco clutches Barry’s shoulders and pulls himself up, “Where did they-?”

 

“They opened a breach!” Barry hisses, “They have vibe powers, how can they-”

 

Wally groans and suddenly Cisco doesn’t give a damn about anything else. They both rush over to Wally, who is curled up shaking on the ground.

 

“My speed,” he sobs, “I can’t feel it. Please, I can’t feel it.”

 

“Oh god,” Barry whispers, hand coming up to cover his mouth in horror, “They cut him off from the Speed Force.”

 

“It hurts.”

 

Cisco runs a hand through Wally’s hair.

 

“I know it dose buddy, but I’ve got you,” he lays a hand on Wally’s stomach, “I’ve got you.”

 

He splays his fingers and hones his senses, closing his eyes in concentration. He feels around, waiting until he feels the lightning and tastes ozone on his tongue, then he latches onto that feeling and pulls.

 

Wally gasps and arches, eyes flashing with lightning.

 

He jumps up and runs circles around them, bystanders cheering as he does.

 

(“Whoop! Kid Flash in the house!” one particularly enthusiastic man yells, followed by his daughter saying, “Aw dada, your embarrassing me.”)

 

“Wally and I are gonna speed the wounded to the hospitals,” Barry tells him, hand clasping Cisco’s shoulder, “You breach back to the lab and get your head checked out.”

 

“But the meta-”

 

“They’re gone for now. We need to regroup.”

 

Cisco sighs and clasps Barry’s hand. It’s an intimate gesture that he hasn’t allowed himself recently. Barry sucks in a surprised breath and then squeezes his hand.

 

“Somethings not making sense here man,” Cisco confesses in a whisper, remembering how he didn’t feel afraid of the meta, not for one moment, “I just feel- “

 

There is a flash, the camera kind, and Cisco looks up at a gaggle of reporters.

 

“Fuck,” he breathes.

 

“Go. I’ll be back soon.”

 

And then Barry is gone. Cisco opens and breach and follows suit.

 

 

“No concussion, not lose of sight, no bleeding or fracture,” Caitlin rattles off to him, “You’re all clear, just a little bruised.”

 

“Thanks that makes me feel so much better. I was rendered useless but a concussion-free bump on the noggin.”

 

Caitlin smiles and flicks his shoulder. She knows what he’s doing, deflecting with snarky humor.

 

Iris leans on the medical table next to him and chuckles as she holds up a tablet. A rather intimate looking picture of Cisco and Barry is on the top of an article titled; THE FLASH AND VIBE – CENTRAL CITIES SUPER ROMANCE?

 

“I really wish I wrote for gossip rags right now,” She laughs, “I could spin the best star-crossed lovers story ever- probably win a Pulitzer.”

 

“I really hate you,” Cisco sighs.

 

Iris hands him an ice pack.

 

“I retract my statement- I, in fact, do not hate you.”

 

“You sweet talker you.”

 

Joe walks in looking harried, but he kisses Iris on the hair as he walks through the door.

 

“The meta got away- no more reported sightings,” he says with a sigh, “No one died, but a couple of officers have bad bone breaks. How are Quell and Cindy?”

 

“They’re upstairs in one of the reception rooms,” Iris tells him, “Cindy’s recovering quicker than expected, though she’s still pretty bad, any person who wasn’t an interdimensional-bounty hunter would be in bed for weeks. Quells almost back to normal.”

 

“He’s a tough bag of bones,” Joe chuckles.

 

“And he has some explaining to do,” Cisco says as he jumps down from the med table.

 

Iris picks up on the emotion in her voice and goes to say something but changes her mind and just nods.

 

They go upstairs to one of the many, many, unused rooms in the facility. Most of them are closed off, but ever since they’ve had to house various people rooms for relaxing had become a necessity. The room they are in was meant to function as a kind of receiving room for investors and diplomats and the like, though Eo-wells never did any receiving of the kind. Its full of plush purple lounges big enough for several people to comfortably sleep on, glass tables fitted with high tech tablets, and a couple of ugly indoor plants that Cisco has been hoping would give up the ghost and die for years now.

 

Cindy is stretched out on one of the lounges, hurt leg elevated and shoulder strapped with a heating pack but otherwise looking alert and fine. Quell is perched next to her on the same lounge, staring down Wally and Barry as they try to talk him into eating a Big Belly Burger. He’s scowling. Hard.

 

Cisco walks in and snatches the burger from Wally’s hand and keeps eye contact with Quell as he takes a big bite.

 

He’s not sure, but he thinks he looks amused.

 

“So,” he says as he flops down onto the lounge opposite to the father and daughter duo, “We just had a run in with six feet of scythe and scary. And, from the timing, I’m guessing you know them.”

 

Cindy instantly tenses, eyes going wide at the corners and focusing on her now murderous looking father. Quell just growls.

 

“Dad,” she says softly, “They need to know.”

 

“It’s our business,” he snarls, eyes locked on Cisco, “We’ll handle it.”

 

“Like you handled it with two dislocated shoulders, a broken leg and all that blood?”

 

Quell surges to his feet and Cisco dose as well.

 

“This doesn’t concern you!” he hisses, almost in Cisco’s face, “This is about our world!”

 

“And now its spilled over into theirs!” Cindy shouts hand held out pleadingly, “If she sent them its only a matter of time, we have to tell them, or we are putting them in danger.”

 

Joe steps forwards and lays a hand on Quell's shoulder, face cast in sadness.

 

“Please, Quell,” he all but whispers, “Good men and women were hurt today. My friends.”

 

Quell looks at Joe and something in his face softens. Then he just growls and stalks away to sit on the back of the lounge, his back to the room. Cindy sighs and sits back. But Cisco knows her, and he can see the storm in her face.

 

“We have been … wilfully misleading you about the state of our world,” she starts, voice soft and she will only look at Cisco, “A few years ago a new leader came into power, Mordeth. She had technology no one had ever seen before, and quickly she gained control of … everything. The banks, the law enforcement, the corporations, everything. She lied to us. She started with small lies about our enemies, how we had to act to stay safe from them. How it was only safe to live in the cities where we could be monitored, how we had to act. Anyone who acted out was disappeared quietly. We think she may have even staged the attack on our world to keep us from traveling between universes unmonitored. We are not a free people.”

 

“A dictator,” Iris says, “Of the whole world?”

 

“And all the other worlds she controls,” Quell growls, “She wants the whole galaxy.”

 

“For a few years now, my father and I have been working against her,” Cindy continues, “My father is the leader of the resistance.”

 

“Woah,” Wally says, “So cool.”

 

“But you work for the Collectors, isn’t that a government-run agency?” Cisco asks.

 

Cindy bites her lip and looks down.

 

“My name is Cynnthia Mordeth,” she says with a shaking voice, “Mordeth is my mother.”

 

“And my Wife,” Quell says in the quietest, faintest voice Cisco has ever heard him use.

 

The room sits stunned. Cindy gulps and continues.

 

“We are afforded a unique sort of semi-freedom. We can sneak out information to people who can undermine her rule, save the lives of the innocent as long as we do it quietly and quickly. We comply where she expects us too, hunt who she needs us too, and she doesn’t look any further. Or, she didn’t.”

 

Cindy motions down at her immobilized leg.

 

“Today she led an attack on a rebel base and we were there,” Cindy grimaces, “I was out of the loop from an internal memo, I didn’t see the plan for the strike. We were seen meeting with known dissidents … so she sent the Hound.”

 

“The Hound?” Barry asks.

 

“The Hound of Mordeth,” Quell continues, “Her most violent and perfect weapon. The taker of countless lives and the key to her reign. They search our world and root out all who stand for freedom. Since rupture first appeared years ago, they’ve been responsible for thousands of deaths.”

 

“And the meta you met today,” Cindy looks up at Cisco, her face blank, “She sent them to retrieve us, so she could imprison us. They are also known as Rupture.”

 

Something in Cisco’s stomach twists.

 

“Imprison you,” Quell says softly, “You, she cannot kill. She would gladly slaughter me.”

 

Cindy looks up at him and reaches a hand out, which he takes and holds for a comforting moment.

 

“Why would this ‘Mordeth’ send her goon to our world if they are so important?” Cisco asks.

 

“And more importantly; does she have a first name?” Ralph, who Cisco did not notice was in the room, asks from where he is leaning against the wet bar. Cindy resolutely ignores him.

 

“Because she will need me to complete her plan of galaxy-wide domination,” Cindy sighs, “And then she will use me to take over other worlds in the Multiverse. Because this is earth-1 she will most likely need this world as a platform for that, so she would have always come here … though I never thought we would be the ones to lead her here.”

 

“Woah,” Wally sighs, “And I thought my family was complicated.”

 

“How do we fight the Hound?” Barry asks, face pinched in a frown, “They have Vibe powers too. When Cisco went toe to toe with them their powers clashed and cause a shock wave, and they easily turned off Wally’s connection to the speed force, so they could obviously do the same to any speedster.”

 

“Nothing can stop the Hound,” Quell growls.

 

“…Okay.”

 

“The ultimate plan for when we overthrew Mordeth was to kill her and hope that the Hound died with her,” Cindy explains, “She treats them like a pet and we think she has infected them with her technology. We thought without her they would just … die.”

 

“You were planning to straight up murder your worlds despotic leader?” Wally squawks, “… that’s heavy.”

 

Cindy bites her lip and looks up at Cisco.

 

“Did Rupture hurt you?”

 

“I’m fine,” Cisco says, waving off her concern, “I’m … I’m actually fine.”

 

Quell looks over his shoulder at Cisco and it makes a shiver run down his spine. He feels like for the first time the other man is truly looking at him. Cisco shivers under that look.

 

“Well if their a vibe user I can track them!” He announces, and jumps up from his seat, “I’ll re-task the satellite while you guys come up with a plan to beat the unbeatable scythe …. master.”

 

Sending one last sympathetic look at Cindy, who sends him one back, he strides out of the room. Something unpleasant is swirling inside of him that he can’t name. inky and thick it settles in his stomach and the back of his mind, a thought just out of reach, a word on the tip of his tongue that he can’t speak-

 

“Cisco!”

 

Oh great.

 

Cisco turns around to see Barry, still dressed in his Flash suit, and hair ruffled in that adorable boyish way of his.

 

“Are you okay?” He asks, softly, eyes shining with concern.

 

“Yeah man,” he shrugs, “I’m okay, Caitlin gave me a clean bill of health. So, I’ll just so my satellite thang and we can get out there after this-”

 

“Cisco.”

 

The rest of Cisco’s words die in his mouth because Barry says his name with such softness, like a lover’s whisper, like a prayer. It makes his knees turn to water.

 

Barry steps forwards and doesn’t touch him, but the look in his eyes may as well be a physical touch. A punch to the gut.

 

“It’s me,” he says just a softly, “Please tell me what’s got you so shaken. I want to help you.”

 

Cisco sighs and closes his eyes for a moment. Curse you Barry Allen and your big brown eyes.

 

Oh god.

 

His type is big brown eyes.

 

Fuck, how has he lived so long without realizing this?

 

Okay, freak out about this later, focus.

 

“I’m just,” Cisco shakes his head with a sigh, “Barry that meta- The Hound or Rupture or whatever- they had me dead to rights and I … I _wasn’t afraid_. This meta was Zoom level scary and I wasn’t afraid for a second.”

 

Barry’s eyes go big and scared.

 

“You- you weren’t afraid to die?”

 

“No! I wasn’t afraid of them! Big scythe and mask and I wasn’t afraid- not for a moment not for a second,” he hisses, hysteria creeping into his voice, “It was like- almost like … like I knew them from somewhere.”

 

Barry’s face goes serious and he nods.

 

“Okay,” he says, “What do you need?”

 

“What do I need? Besides a new brain?”

 

“Cisco.”

 

“Just-” he sighs, “I just give me a few hours. I need to look for … I don’t know.”

 

“Okay, done,” Barry says, “In the meantime we’re going to move Quell and Cindy over to Joe’s house. He still has those magical reinforcements from when Constantine and that …. Thing, came to town and you said they made your powers feel wonky so we think they’ll be safe there for a while. We’ll try and come up with a plan over there as well.”

 

“Yeah. Sounds good, man.”

 

Barry cups his face and he feels all the air get sucked out of the hallway.

 

“You don’t have to keep things to yourself all the time,” he says softly, “Cindy, Iris, me, we’re all here for you if you need us.”

 

Cisco swallows, throat clogged with emotion.

 

“I know.”

 

Barry nods, gives him one last look, and the turns away back to the reception room.

 

Cisco stays for a moment, in the dark silent hallway. Something in knawing at him, behind the emotional turmoil he was already in. Like an invention that just can’t quite work, a problem that just won’t be solved, the answer is floating somewhere in front of his eyes and he just can’t see it.

 

Like that moment at the bottom of the stairs when you don’t know if there is one more step or not.

 

There is a lurch and jolt, and then startles relief when you touch the floor. Cisco is trapped in the second part. And he’s getting annoyed.

 

“Time to slide down the banister.”

 

 

The first thing Cisco does is lint rolls Wally’s suit. He was the closest in contact to the Hound, so his suit is the most likely to have biological DNA on it. Even if the meta is from another world identifying their doppelganger on this world will help more than it hurts.  He finds some hair and skin, both small but useable traces. He puts it into the system and lets it run. It isn’t what’s important right now anyway.

 

What’s important is Cisco sitting down and figuring out how he would trap and detain himself.

 

Obviously, he already has invented the basic parts of containing a meta. Power repressing cuffs, The Boot. But all of them can be disrupted before they are put into use, especially if the Meta in question has destructive vibrational powers. What he needs is an invention that disrupts said powers so said inventions can be implemented in said way.

 

So; how would he fight himself?

 

In truth, he’s thought about it before. When he met Reverb and realized he could run into an immoral doppelganger of himself he drew up ideas. But then his powers grew, and he realized he was thinking too small. After meeting Cindy and coming into his powers more he thought about it again, but every time he came to the same realization that the best way to kill a vibe user was a speedster’s hand through their chest.

 

In theory, their powers are somewhat limitless. Vibrations with enough energy to draw from, they could shake apart the world … maybe more than just the world. Cisco doesn’t like to think about it.

 

Limitless power- that’s all very Anakin and Palpatine. The fall into Vader and the unstoppable horror that came after.

 

What they need is something that completely immobilizes the meta before they can get a shot off. Like an anti-meta landmine that traps more than it blows you to smithereens. Maybe the anti-meta technology paired with a sedation system- something that could be deployed quickly from a distance and that doesn’t kill the meta. Cisco has met his quota of lethal weapons. The idea of building anymore makes him feel sick.

 

He starts drawing up a prototype design for the landmine, trap, thingy, and just when he’s doing the mock-up of the power source when his phone rings.

 

“Hey, Hermano!” Dante sings down the line.

 

“Hey, Dante. Get beat up in any biker bars yet today?”

 

“No, but the day is young,” he laughs, “What’s up with you, I saw Vibe and the Flash got a little bow-chicka-wow-wow in public today.”

 

“I hate you.”

 

“… I also saw some pretty scary photos of a big scary reaper.”

 

“I’m working on it now,” he sighs, “They’ve got the same powers as me and Cindy, so I have to invent something new to trap them.”

 

“Just be careful, okay. I don’t want to go to any more memorials. Speaking of-”

 

“Jeez, yeah I know,” Cisco hisses in annoyance as the computer across the lab beeps, the DNA search finished quicker than the anticipated, “I’m gonna be there I swear, but this meta is involved in something much _much_ bigger than a bank robbery or a gang war or something so I might have to leave a bit-”

 

He feels himself freeze when he sees the computer screen.

 

“No.”

 

“Cisco? Cisco, what is it?”

 

He-

 

He’s gonna be sick.

 

“This can’t be- this can’t be true.”

 

He’s crying, and he only realizes when he feels a tear drop on to the keyboard.

 

Numb horrible pain and chilling sickness are all he can feel, rolling through his body in waves.

 

“Cisco!” Dante yells, “Talk to me!”

 

Cisco gasps- sobs as he doubles over. The world comes rushing back in at his brother’s words … and with it comes pure, blind, rage.

 

“Meet me at Joe Wests house,” he says in a monotone down the phone line.

 

“What? Cisco, what’s wrong I-”

 

“ _Meet. Me. There._ ”

 

 

He’s at the West house between one breath and the next, breaching into their entrance hall. Everyone is in the living room, paper and pencils strewn around them as they plan. Joe is by the fire, on the phone to Cecile who is out with Bea, Harry and Caitlin are sitting on the other side of it while Quell leans against the doorway to the kitchen where Wally is making hot chocolate, and Iris and Barry occupy one half of the couch while Cindy stretches out on the other.

 

Cisco makes a beeline for Quell.

 

“Cisco!” Iris starts, “What-”

 

She’s too slow.

 

Before anyone can react Cisco strides across the room, picks Quell up by his throat, carry’s him through the doorway and slams him down onto the kitchen table so hard is rattles the whole house. It’s a testament to Quell's shock that Cisco was even allowed to get close to him, let alone to this.

 

“Did you know?” he asks, voice eerily level.

 

“Cisco!” Cindy yells, and he hears a thump that must be her cast hitting the floor, “Cisco what are you doing!”

 

Quell growls and Cisco just squeezes harder.

 

“ _Did. You. Know_.”

 

Quell bears his teeth in a snarl.

 

“ _Yes_.”

 

Cisco yells and feels energy seep out from him into Quell, making him scream as his atoms begin to separate.

 

“Cisco!” Cindy screams, “Cisco, please! Please!”

 

Her voice cuts through his rage like a knife and he drops Quell, holding his hands up and away. He won’t take his loves father away. No matter how much he wants to right now.

 

Quell slumps back against the table, gasping raggedly for air. Joe goes over to him, checks him and then looks up at Cisco with hard eyes.

 

“You better have a damn good reason for doing that in my house, son.”

 

Cisco bears his teeth in a snarl.

 

“The Hound is my Sister.”

 

Everyone in the room speaks at once, exclamations of ‘What?’ and ‘How’ and

 

Caitlin looks at him with big wet eyes and says; “You never told me you had a sister.”

 

“No,” Cindy all but whispers, eyes flicking between her father and Cisco, “No it's not- Rupture fell from the sky into our world years ago. They called them a fallen deity- an expelled angel! They were so powerful, so destructive like an angry god…” she looks pleadingly at her father, “Tell him it's not true, Dad! Rupture can’t be from their world.”

 

Quell won’t meet her eyes.

 

“Tell him!”

 

Cisco moves over to her and hands her his tablet. On it is the test, and beside it is a picture of a cheekily smiling girl, curls tangling with the red hair of the girl her arm is around.

 

“Rupture was the nickname of the best Running-Back Patton High School has ever seen,” he tells her, and the whole room with gravel concealing the rage in his voice, “Armando Ramon was her name. Manda. My _sister_.”

 

He looks over at Quell, and so does everyone else. He meets no one’s eyes. Joe steps away from him, hand covering his mouth.

 

“Fourteen years ago, I was walking down the street with my brother and my sister,” a horrible smile takes over his face, and no one else moves to speak, “She had just been accepted into her dream College on a scholarship, she was moving across the county soon to attend the same school as the love of her life, and I was-” he swallows heavily, “-I was being a shit. I didn’t want her to go and she said she had to for me. So that when I got to go it would be easier, I wouldn’t have to try as hard as she did to get in. And I remember saying I didn’t want to go to college just, so she could stay … she laughed. Then a hole opened up in the middle of the air.”

 

“A breach,” Barry says in a whisper, face cast in horrible sadness.

 

“Yeah. Though for years I just thought it was a portal to hell. And a monster came out of it and grabbed me. But my sister-”

 

It becomes too much for him and he feels his face crumple. Iris strides across the room and hugs him before anyone else can move.

 

“Our sister grabbed him out.”

 

Everyone whirls around to see Dante, flat-haired and tear streaked standing behind the couch. He is looking down at the tablet in Cindy’s lap.

 

“She grabbed him and threw him out, but she was pulled in,” he continues, “She called for me to reach in and grab him, but I was too afraid. And then it closed. And she was gone.”

 

“Wait,” Joe breathes, “I remember this. I was off sick because Iris and Barry both had the mumps, but I saw it on the news. Holes opened up all over the city and countless people got hurt and- … and a buddy of mine got a missing person case where the only two witnesses were two traumatized kids.”

 

“He didn’t believe us,” Dante says, voice cold, “So we stopped talking.”

 

“For fourteen years,” Cisco agrees.

 

Barry looks at him with big sad eyes.

 

“I always had someone believe me about ‘the man in the lightning’,” he says softly, nodding at Joe and Iris, “I can’t imagine how it would feel- … I understand why you were never able to tell anyone about her.”

 

Cisco nods at him, too emotional to say how grateful he is for him saying that without bursting into tears.

 

Dante looks up at him, face as angry as Cisco feels.

 

“Are you sure it’s her?”

 

Cisco breaks off from Iris, takes the tablet from Cindy and holds it out to his brother. He strokes a hand down her arm comfortingly. From the horrified look on her face, he knows she didn’t know. He doesn’t blame her.

 

“I did every test I could,” he tells his brother, “The DNA matches families genetic markers, and the DNA from the hair on her old hairbrush that the police took as evidence. And all her genetic markers match that of someone from earth-1. It can’t be anyone else.”

 

Dante looks up at him.

 

“Who made her this way?” he demands, “And where can I _fucking_ find them?”

 

“Mordeth,” Quell growls, “Has her hooks so deep in your sister's mind she has burnt out whatever existed of her. She is a weapon. She has no brothers, no family, and no memories of whatever she once was.”

 

Cisco puts a hand on Dante’s chest to keep him from running at Quell.

 

“How could you do this?” Cindy demands, sadness in her voice, “How could you let their sister suffer at Mordeth’s hands? How could you not try and _save_ her?”

 

“If I saved her Mordeth would know I was with the resistance,” something like impotent, desperate, anger takes over his face, “One girl over a whole galaxy? How could I have ever chosen differently?”

 

Cindy looks down and away. She looks ashamed.

 

“This changes everything,” Iris announces to the otherwise silent room, “This is no longer our usual ‘stop and detain’ kind of mission. This is now a rescue mission.”

 

She looks Cisco in the eye, nothing but strength and determination in her.

 

“We are getting your sister back,” she announces, “No matter what happens from here on out we are getting her away from Mordeth. No excuses no alternatives.”

 

“Yeah!” Wally shouts from where he has been standing silently in the kitchen with their rapidly cooling hot chocolates. Well most of their hot chocolates, Ralph has drunk three of the mugs.

 

“From what Quell has said her brainwashing may be extensive and… absolute,” Caitlin grimaces, “What if she isn’t herself, even a little bit? What if she’s all gone?”

 

“Doesn’t matter how much of her there is left,” Dante says, voice surer than Cisco has ever heard it, “She will always be our sister. End of story.”

 

Cisco nods and clasps his brother's shoulder.

 

“Okay,” Barry announces, “let’s go antagonize an interdimensional despot. For family.”

 

“For family,” the room echoes.

 

Cisco loves them more than he can say. Suddenly he is overcome with a memory. Sitting with his sister on her sun-warmed bed as she read to him a line from one of her favorite books;

 

“ _I don’t care about whose DNA has recombined with whose,”_ she had whispered with a smile, “ _When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching, they are your family_.”

 

He looks over at his brother Dante squeezes his shoulder back, and Cisco knows he is thinking of the same memory.

 

“You’ve built us a good one.”

 

 

They decide on a confrontation on their terms. Draw out Armando by Cisco and Cindy going out into the field, so they can try and get through to her. And if all else fails, detain her. The thought makes Cisco feel sick, but he knows what needs to be done isn’t being done out of malevolence. That doesn’t make him feel better though.

 

Of course, they decide this moments before a huge breach opens over the Docklands and a huge mechanical warship flies through.

 

Every tv and radio and computer, all of them are instantly taken over, and a beautifully harsh woman appears on their screens, smiling benevolently. Dressed in a hideous skin-tight silver dress and metal crown she has pale skin and long dark hair and flat, dim eyes. She looks fake, perfectly put together but there is something wrong with her. Something rotten.

 

“ _Friends_ ,” she says, voice both wooden and mechanically synthetic, “ _I am Lady Mordeth of Piradell,_ and _I am welcomed to your beautiful world. So full of riches and resources and diverse peoples. There is much we can learn from each other. But first I must demand the return of my property. Return my dear husband and daughter to me, or I will slaughter all who stand in my way. Man or woman or child my blade will know no mercy. You have seven hours._ ”

 

The transmission cuts off. The West house is completely silent.

 

“Well,” Dante says with a smirk, brandy infused hot chocolate in his hands, “At least we know what the bitch looks like now.”

 

“And we have a location,” Iris says, pulling up a map of the waterfront.

 

“Wait,” Wally says from where he is sitting upside down next to the fire, “You want to walk out and meet this woman? Like, walk right up to her?”

 

“Yes,” she says, marker screeching across the paper.

 

“…Okay sis, are you sure you actually saw that scary woman on tv, or nah?”

 

Iris rolls her eyes at him.

 

“Some of us will walk out and meet them, meanwhile the others will be ready for back up with Cisco’s trap that Harry’s building.”

 

“Landmine,” he corrects and then holds up a walkie-talkie, “and how is my trap coming along, Harry?”

 

“Fine,” Harry growls, “Why aren’t you- I don’t know- _here building it yourself,_ again?”

 

“Because is Manda comes after Cindy or her dad I want to be here.”

 

Harry growls again and cuts off the transmission.

 

“What do you think?” Barry asks the room, “Anyone wanna back out or speak up the time is now.”

 

No one speaks, but Joe sighs.

 

“I think it’s the best plan we’ve got,” he says, looking tired as he stands from his seat, “I’ve got Cecile and Bea evacuated to Kara’s earth, and Singh wants all available cops on evac and crowd control, but if any of you need me for anything…”

 

“Thanks, Joe,” Cisco says with a smile, “And I’m uh, sorry about before-”

 

“No, you aren’t and no you shouldn’t be,” he looks at Cisco seriously, “Lord knows I know about doing stupid things for family, and you had a damned good reason.”

 

“Still I won’t do it again.”

 

“Better not, my table isn’t that well-built.”

 

Cisco laughs, and Joe leaves the house with a warm smile masking his worry.

 

Cindy appears in the doorway, sans cast or bandages.

 

“I’m ready when you all are,” she announces, not even limping as she walks into the room.

 

“Cindy, you’re injured-” Iris tries.

 

“But this is my worlds problems spilling onto yours,” she interrupts sternly, but not unkindly, “I need to help. And I want to help.”

 

“I don’t blame you,” Cisco says, “You know I don’t.”

 

“No … but I never asked who Rupture was. Not once. I believed Mordeth when she said they were an angry exiled god, even though I knew she was a liar. I was willfully ignorant. I need to make up for that if I am to live with myself.”

 

Dante, who is sitting curled up in a chair by the fire looks at Cindy for a long moment and then asks;

 

“You don’t have a brother, do you?”

 

Cisco throws a marker at him from across the room.

 

“Hey! I was only asking. Cause this leather and intensity theme is really up my-”

 

“I will pay you good money to stop talking right now.”

 

Cindy smiles and lets out a rare dry chuckle.

 

“Only child.”

 

“Damn. Know any single interdimensional bounty hunters with leather fetishes?”

 

Ralph snorts his hot chocolate so hard Caitlin has to thump him on his back and then help him rearrange his face after the impact proves too much.

 

“Maybe,” Cindy says with a smirk, “Want me to pass your number around the barracks?”

 

“Ooh, good idea!”

 

“Kill me,” Cisco groans covering his face as Barry and Iris not so subtly laugh at him, “Just kill me.”

 

“Nope, no time for killing!” Barry laughs as he zips back into the room, “We’re all set to go! Harry’s just adjusting the power source-”

 

“There was nothing wrong with the power source!”

 

“And then he’s gonna meet us down there.”

 

Iris nods at her husband and then looks over at Cisco. She looks so serious it makes Cisco sit up straighter.

 

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” she asks one last time, “Are you sure you can get through to her?”

 

Cisco bites in a breath and looks over at Dante, who looks back at him with sure, angry, eyes.

 

“No. But I have to try.”

 

Iris nods.

 

“Then lets move out.”

 

They all stand up and begin slipping into their gear and when Dane stands up too Cisco shakes his head.

 

“You’re not coming.”

 

“Like fuck, I’m not!”

 

“Dante-”

 

“No, Francisco! I’m coming,” he hisses, already loading himself up with their excess gear and tech, “She’s my sister too and I of all people should be there when we bring her back.”

 

“What do you mean you of all people?”

 

Dante stands up ramrod straight and Cisco knows without seeing his face that he is wearing a dark expression.

 

“It’s my fault that that thing took her, Cisco. Don’t pretend like it isn’t.”

 

Cisco is so shocked he can’t get any words out.

 

A memory of screaming in the rain come back to him suddenly.

_Why did Armando have to die saving me anyway?! What’s so special about me?_

 

But he can’t find it in himself to go after his brother. Something as frozen him. Fear or shock he can’t tell. He just watches Dante walk out of the silent house.

 

Ralph leans in and asks out of the side of his mouth;

 

“Is your family always this intense?”

 

Caitlin punches him the arm and drags him out of the house before he can say anything else.

 

Cisco stands there for a moment head swimming with a kind of horribly sad irony. All these years and they’d both been blaming themselves for Manda being taken.

 

He swallows that thought down, he’ll deal with it later. Later they can fix everything. When they get Manda back home.

 

He shakes off the stares of everyone in the room and walks out the door, straight-backed, and starry-eyed Cisco Ramon goes off to war.

 

 

Mordeth’s ship, while pants-shittingly-scary on the news, is ten times worse in person. It hovers above the water, silent and unmoving and so unsettling it makes Cisco’s skin crawl. It's not natural for a ship, a machine, to make no noise at all. Streamlined and so obviously not from this world it floats, waiting.

 

Cisco walks out to meet it with Cindy at his side.

 

Joe and Quell and the other cops had succeeded in clearing the area for six city blocks in each direction, so there is no noise between them except their boots crunching on the grass, and their cautious breathes as they form into dragon’s mist in front of their faces.

 

Cindy is shaking. More than anything Cisco wants to take her hand, but he knows he can’t.

 

“I’m fine,” she whispers as if she can hear her thoughts, “I’m fine, don’t worry.”

 

Cisco nods, as slightly as he can so no one watching will see as they come to a stop in front of the craft. Close enough that they will be heard, and close enough to be within weapons range, but also close enough that the speedsters will be able to speed in in the straightest lines possible. Cisco glances down at Cindy’s cuffed wrists and swallows. It's time.

 

“Hey!” He yells at the ship, “Scary space lady! I have your daughter here! So, hurry up and get off my planet!”

 

Nothing happens.

 

“Hey, you in there! I’ve got your daughter, you hear me?!”

 

Nothing.

 

Cisco grits his teeth.

 

“Easy,” Cindy whispers, “Just give them a moment.”

 

“To what?”

 

“Be menacing.”

 

Then, suddenly, the air split open into a breach in front of them and Rupture stepped out. Cisco felt all the breath leave his body.

 

Now that he knew the truth he could see that she was his sister, of course she was, how could he not have seen before? The way that even the hack job haircutt couldn’t contain her curls, they reached up and out, spiraling without control just like they always did. The wide breadth of her shoulders, where he had sat many a time when he was small. Even the way she loomed towards them, hunched and menacing just like she had been all those years ago when she had faced down their neighbourhood bullies for her snot nosed brothers.

 

His sister. His Manda. Bent but not broken and not nearly as dead as he had known her to be.

 

He thinks of every figure from myth and history who rose from the grave. Miracles they had been.

 

And the he thinks of his comic books. He thinks of The Winter Soldier, and how that had been nothing but cruelty.

 

Rupture raises her scythe at them.

 

“You have returned what is my mistresses property,” her voice comes, garbled and distorted through the mask, “Your world will be spared destruction. Where is Breacher?”

 

“He-” Cisco stumbled over his words, “He is dead.”

 

“Lies.”

 

“They killed him,” Cindy sobs, acting impressively, “he tried to stop them taking me and they killed him.”

 

“This world is populated by Heroes not killers,” Rupture adjusts their grip around their scythe, “My mistress does not believe you.”

 

“Yeah well, being a hero doesn’t extend to a world ending situation like this.”

 

“… Acceptable.”

 

Rupture inclines her head to the side and Cisco knows that she is looking at him. He slips off his vibe goggles and looks up at her. Her shoulders tense.

 

Cisco swallows thickly as his heart races. It’s now or never.

 

“Manda,” he says softly, stepping closer to where she floats in front of him, “Manda, its me.”

 

Manda twitches, hand tightening around her weapon until it must be painful.

 

“I-” she stutters, “I-”

 

“Mando, it’s me, Cisco.”

 

A shaking hand comes up and clasps her mask as she touches down on the ground.

 

“F- _Francisco_?”

 

Her mask hits the ground just as Cisco feels tears start rolling down his face. He smiles up into his sister’s face.

 

She has the same large brown eyes and square jaw, and though her face is taught where it was once round, and there is a scar climbing up from the left of her jaw to her hair line, it is still her. She is still his sister.

 

“H-how,” she stutters, voice coming out clearly without the muzzle, still tinged with that accent their grandmother had instilled in them, “How a-are you h-here? I-I-”

 

“You are home, Manda,” he tells her softly, “This is our world, our home.”

 

“H-home?” she tips her head to the side and looks around at frozen Central City, “I’m home?”

 

“Yeah,” he laughs, tears flowing freely now as he steps closer again, almost close enough to touch her now, “Yeah, you’re home-”

 

“Cisco,” Cindy warns but he’s not paying attention to her.

 

“-you’re home and you’re safe now you just have to come with me and we’ll get you safe, okay?”

 

“Go with you?”

 

“Yeah, yeah everything will be fine I promise.”

 

“ _Go with you.”_

 

A shiver runs up Cisco’s spine and all ay once he realizes his sister face has shifted from frightened hope into a horrible, twisting rage.

 

“Cisco!” Cindy shouts.

 

Manda reaches forward and grabs Cisco by the front of his jacket, hoisting him up into the air as she raises her scythe to his neck.

 

“I am Rupture,” she hisses, teeth clenched, and eyes filled with rage, “I am Mordeth’s servant in the darkness-”

 

“No!” Cisco croaks, throat closing.

 

“-I am her hand in the darkness. I am her hand in all things. And you are lying to me, protecting my prey, _Vibe_.”

 

“Cisco!” Iris screams over the coms, “Cisco we have to move!”

 

“No,” he whispers, but it’s too late.

 

Cindy moves dropping the cloak around her hands, the image of manacles dripping away to show his anti-Vibe-Landmine in her hands, armed and ready. She winds her arm back and throws, quicker than Cisco’s eyes can track.

 

But not quicker than Ruptures.

 

She raises her scythe and shoots a wave of energy from it. And because Cisco had made the device specifically to combat vibe users it dose nothing to destroy it, but it dose send it flying backwards so it hits and latches on to Cindy. The device sensing a Vibe powered person powers up and engulfs Cindy, cutting her off in a tube of brilliant blue.

 

“Dammit!” She screams, kicking against the energy field, face cast in fear “Cisco, run!”

 

“My mistress will be pleased to have you back!”

 

“Manda…”

Cisco reaches out to shoot a wave of energy at her chest, hopefully knock some sense into her, but she is faster. She sends a wave of vibrational energy up into him that hurts so bad he can feel it in his atoms. He grits his teeth against the pain and loom imploringly into his sister’s eyes. She isn’t there to look back.

 

There is a flash of red behind her and Rupture drops him. He thuds against the ground as she twirls her scythe up into a holster on her back below her cape and raises her hands in time to send twin vibe blasts. Right into Barry and Wally.

 

They scream as their powers cut off and they drop to the ground. The abrupt lack of the speedforce ripping through them savagely.

 

“Manda!” Cisco yells, “Manda, stop!”

 

But she doesn’t stop.

 

Caitlin is next, having snuck up beside Cisco while Ruptures back was turned, and while she manages to shoot off a stream of icicles at her they do little. The impact is shrugged off like an annoyance, then her scythe is being hooked through Caitlin’s arm and she is flung across the park into the water. Ralph stretches in after her, his tactical advantage given up in favour of saving her life.

 

Then Rupture, with no more visible enemies to fight turns back to Cisco.

 

She raises her hand to him and Cisco looks up at his sister, his hero. And he sobs.

 

Which is when Cisco hears the familiar click of the boot gun powering up.

 

“Stop,” Dante growls, giant gun in his hand pointed squarely at his sister, “Stop it, Manda.”

 

“Dante!” Cisco yells, “No! it’s not safe!”

 

“Like I’d leave you out here on your own,” A savage smirk overtakes his face, “You know how I am with the limelight. Can’t stand to see anyone else in it.”

 

“Dante please,” Cisco sobs, “Please-”

 

But then Cisco realises, nothing is happening.

 

He looks up at his sister and sees her looking at Dante with wide wet eyes.

 

“I-” she says so softly its almost carried off by the wind, “I must be … I must be dreaming.”

 

Hope, dreadful and warm sparks again in Cisco’s chest.

 

“You’re not dreaming!” he says, his voice frantic as he gets up onto his knees, “You’re not dreaming, we are real, Mando!”

 

Her face twists but not with rage this time. This time its twists with despair.

 

“I’ll get hurt for dreaming,” she whispers, voice trembling, “I’m not allowed to dream. Not allowed. Not-”

 

“Listen to me, Manda!” Cisco commands, extending his hand up to his older sister, imploring, “This is not a dream. Your name is Armando Ramon. You chose to keep that name after you came out because you were proud of it. If was our grandfathers name, and his fathers name and you wanted to keep it for them. I’m Cisco and that’s Dante and we are your brothers, and this is your home.”

 

“No.”

 

“Yes! You grew up in this City with me and Dante. You bought me my first science text book when I was six, it was about physics and it was a ratty piece of shit, but I still have it!”

 

“You taught Cisco to ride a bike,” Dante croaks, face streaming with tears and eyes as fierce as a forest fire, “You taught me how to throw a spiral and bend a ball, and how to play five card stud.”

 

“You went to all of Dante’s recitals and all of my science fairs,” Cisco continues, voice growing with confidence as something new blooms in Manda’s eyes, “You were the best damn Football player your high school had had in ten years and you had a full ride to college!”

 

“Where you were going to go with the love of your life; Terri Eckhart. You went on your first date with her to the drive in, like a fucking cliché and you came home and told us you were in love. She wore your jacket on every game day, and snuck into your room up the water pipe every night, because she loved you just as much! You were loved, Manda. By every god damned person you met… and by us most of all.”

 

“I-I- can’t-”

 

“You were the best damned older sister anyone could ever had!” Cisco keeps going, “You were strong, and kind and you knew how to fight! So, fight this Manda! Because we are your brothers and you are not leaving us again! We are not losing you again!”

 

Manda, breathing rapid and strained, stumbles back from them eyes flicking around. And then something in her changes. Her eyes flash red but then they come back clearer than Cisco has seen them today. She falls to her knees and stares at them.

 

“Hermanos,” she breathes, body going limp as the fight leaves her, “Mi hermanos.”

 

Yes. Cisco grins and slumps down too. It’s over.

 

“Fuck yeah!” Dante whoops, throws his gun to the ground and runs the last few feet to his sister so he can drop down on to her and squeeze her into his arms, “Yes! Yes, Mi Hermana is back!”

 

Cisco laughs as Manda freezes and then hugs Dante back, face cast in indescribable sadness as she begins to cry into his shoulder.

 

Yes. Yes, it’s over.

 

“Shit- Cisco look out-”

 

Cindy’s shout comes too late.

 

Suddenly he feels cold finger tips at his temples, red light overtakes his gaze, and he is screaming.

 

Pain unlike anything overtakes him and a cold, horrible voice speaks from above him.

 

“You have broken my puppet, Vibe. Laid low my most obedient servant,” Mordeth coos as she pumps a wave of nauseating pain throughout his body, “I will need a new toy with which to play, and you will do nicely.”

 

Cisco screams again, or never stopped. He can’t tell the pain is too much. He can’t see and all he can feel is his throat burning so bad he thinks it must be filling up with blood.

 

He can feel the red moving into his brain, breaching through him and scorching up his insides, his veins and his synapses. He is being burned from the inside out, unmade, disassembled and dismembered in the most heinous way he can imagine.

_Save me_ , he thinks as the red spreads and spreads, _oh god please save me_.

 

And then he hears an angel speak.

 

“Take your hands off my brother!”

 

The red clears just in time for Cisco to see Manda, standing over him as her scythe comes down and cuts the monster Mordeth clean in half.

 

The red snaps away and Cisco scrambles towards his sister.

 

Mordeth falls clean into two halves, insides showing through as wires and metal rather than flesh and bone. She sparks, twitches and then goes still.

 

A strong hand hoists Cisco up to his feet and Cisco looks up into his sister’s face.

 

“Are you okay, little brother?”

 

Cisco smiles and then wraps his arms around her. Manda drops her scythe and Cisco watches as she raises her foot and then stomps her mask- her muzzle- into dust. Then, she hugs him back. Fiercely.

 

“Armando.”

 

“Francisco.”

 

They laugh, small and weak against the exhaustion of it all.

 

“She’s not in my head anymore,” Manda whispers, voice raw from disuse, “She’s not in here anymore I can feel it."

 

It’s over.

 

“It’s not over.”

 

“Oh, come on!”

 

Cisco breaks away from his sister to see that Iris has let Cindy out of the trap and Caitlin and Ralph have helped the two speedsters to their feet.

 

“I’m sorry,” Cindy says, “I’m sorry but we can’t celebrate yet. The technology Mordeth was infected with is extremely volatile and it's basically alive. We need to get it out of her before it attacks.”

 

“Attacks?” Barry asks face strained in pain, “What do you mean at-?”

 

As if sensing the drama of the moment the components that had made up Mordeth suddenly separate and then begin to fly through the air back to the ship.

 

“-oh crap.”

 

“It will explode,” Cindy says, “Seek vengeance on her behalf.”

 

“We need to get it as high into the atmosphere as possible,” Cisco agrees, breaking off from his sister to walk over to the speedsters, lay his hands on their stomachs and start pulling back the speedforce, “Barry if you and Wally create a vortex under the ship maybe we can propel it up high enough so the blast won't-”

 

“Manda!”

 

Cisco spins around at his brothers shout.

 

Spins around in time to see his sister. Standing in front of Mordeth’s ship. Straight-backed and teary-eyed she smiles at her two brothers.

 

“Mi hermanos,” she says, voice carrying through the cold clear air, “I’m still responsible for all that destruction. All those deaths. I have to make this right.”

 

“Manda, no!”

 

“You don’t have to do this.”

 

“Thank you,” she calls, “For saving me.”

 

“Armando!”

 

But it’s too late. Before anyone can stop her Manda raises her hands to the ship, which has begun to spit and his and whir like crazy, and opens a breach around it. Then she floats up, braces herself against the ship and pushes it through.

 

“She can’t sustain a breach that big!” Barry yells, “She’ll never make it through to another earth!”

 

“She’s not going to another earth,” Cindy says with awe in her voice, “She’s just going up.”

 

“We have to do something! We can’t just let her-!”

 

Cindy hooks her hand around his arm and looks at him with big, sad, eyes.

 

“We’re beat, Cisco,” she tells him softly, “There is no way we would get to her in time.”

 

“But-”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Cisco feels himself deflate and then, in silence, they all turn their faces up.

 

Up, high above them, so high they can only see flashes of colour and not shapes, a breach opens, and the ship comes out, continuing to climb.

 

“Come on, Manda,” Dante whispers, “Come on.”

 

The ship struggles upwards, becoming smaller and smaller while the whines its letting out grows louder. It shakes about like it is fighting Manda’s hold and then-

 

-then the sky is painted red. The ship explodes in a cloud of red and orange energy, a deafening woman’s scream souring across the atmosphere.

 

Cisco looks up at the cacophony and thinks he sees a flash of blue.

 

Their silent vigil is broken by heavy panting and Joe comes running up.

 

“What happened?” he asks breathlessly, “Where is Armando?”

 

“She’s- is my father with you?”

 

“He breaches out,” Joe says shaking his head, “Didn’t say a word, just left.”

 

Cindy frowns.

 

“Where would he-”

 

A breach opens in front of them and Quell comes stumbling out, skin and clothes damaged with shrapnel, and an unconscious Manda balanced across his shoulders. Cisco and Dante immediately run and take her from him, laying her on the ground so they can assess her condition.

 

“Alive,” Cisco sighs, “Unconscious and wounded and really _really_ worn out … but alive.”

 

“Dad!” Cindy shouts running forwards to support her father, “Dad you saved her!”

 

Quell looks at his daughter and squeezes her tighter to his side.

 

“One girl over a whole galaxy?” he says softly, “How could I have ever chosen differently?”

 

Cindy grins and hugs him closer, relieved tears streaming down her face.

 

Cisco looks around at his little, battle broken family and smiles.

 

It’s over.

 

For real this time.

 

 

“-Tio got divorced a couple of years ago, totally shocked the family for like a week until he ran off with his business partner, Johnny, should have seen Abuelas face it was amazing. Um, Mums okay, she’s been doing this home run business thing? She’s actually making a killing, who knew people liked soap so much. Uh what else happened? Cousin all grew up, being snot-nosed brats didn’t grow out with them let me tell you-”

 

Cisco watches Manda nod along to everything Dante says as he portions out their food from the takeaway containers. He doesn’t think her being back has really settled in yet, so the babble is helping to calm all their nerves.

 

Manda is sitting on the sofa in his loft, finally rid of that awful armor and wounds treated. She looks so much younger dressed in Cisco’s fluffy star trek pajama bottoms, bright yellow thermal socks, Dante’s pride beanie with the pom-poms, and Cisco’s Kermit the Frog sipping tea hoodie. She is still curled in on herself like she might be cold so Cisco, while he is up, grabs a throw blanket and drapes it over her legs.

 

She looks up at him, face still filled with awe.

 

“What are these?” she asks and smooths her hand over the blanket.

 

“Oh um- pug dogs … as sushi rolls.”

 

Manda laughs softly and tucks the blanket more firmly around her legs. Cisco smiles down at her, his chest tight with emotion.

 

He can’t imagine what she has been through in the past so many years.

 

Cindy and Quell had implied some things before they left. Some horrible things about massacres and wars. Cisco doesn’t know how to equate all that with his big sister.

 

(“We have to go,” Cindy had said, “Our world is going to need a lot of help rebuilding itself … and so will your sister.”

 

“If you need help you know where I am.”

 

“Yeah, I do.”

 

Which is when Cindy had seized him by the front of his jacket and kissed him within an inch of his life. Then she pulled back and smiled in a way he had never seen before. She looked free.

 

Quell had just stood there and growled.

 

“You know I’m going to hate you for a very long time.”

 

Cisco stuck his hand out to shake the other mans.

 

“But not forever.”

 

Which is when Cisco saw Quell shocked for the first time in his life. Cindy laughed so hard he honestly thought she would burst something.”)

 

Manda seems relatively ‘normal’ now but Cisco can tell she is putting on a brave face. For now, he is going to let her keep her façade up, let her pull herself in so that she can come to him in her own time, fall apart when she is ready to fall apart. No matter what, he’ll be there.

 

“-oh, and the movies! All the nerd stuff got rebooted; Star Trek got some more movies and two of them are watchable, and a couple of new series as well. Douglas Addams finally got an adaptation he deserves, and almost every damn superhero either has a show or a movie coming out- even the b listers! Oh, and Star Wars! They are making a shit loud of Star Wars movies, and I know you were a Padme Amidala girl but trust me they have actually thought them through now, well maybe the casting could be better but wait until you see Diego Luna in Rouge One because girl I am telling you-”

 

A knock at the door stops Dante mid-sentence and the two brothers go tense. Manda doesn’t.

 

“It’s the red speedster,” she says softly, “And the woman.”

 

“Barry and Iris,” Cisco tells her, “They’re my friends.”

 

“More than his friends _if ya know what I_ \- ow!”

 

Dante rubs his arm where Cisco punched him, and Manda tracks him all the way to the door. She looks worried so Cisco smiles at her. She shifts back against the sofa, at ease but still watching. It’s the best he can hope for at the moment.

 

Cisco opens the door and steps out into the hall instead of letting his two friends in.

 

“Sorry,” he tells them softly, “Manda’s just a little sensitive about people being around- people who aren’t family and-”

 

Which is when Cisco looks down and sees that Iris is holding the biggest, most pink, present bag he has ever seen.

 

“-huh?”

 

Iris smiles at him, looking bright and yet slightly worried. Barry is wearing the same look … and holding another present bag.

 

“Sorry!” Iris says, “We won’t take you away from them for long we just-”

 

“We realized that Manda won’t have any clothes,” Barry continues, “Or any soaps and Iris wanted to get her some coco-butter for her scars, if-if she wanted to maybe treat them-”

 

“-and a phone, we got her a smartphone! And … and a flip phone in case she needs a transition phase! And a winter coat, and whole lot of hoodies, the good ones that are so soft-”

 

Cisco is slamming Barry up against the wall and kissing the life out of him before he even processes the idea. Barry exclaims and then melts under him. Iris giggles.

 

Cisco breaks away from Barry and turns to Iris, cupping her face and looking deep into her eyes.

 

“Thank you so much. Thank you _both_ so much.”

 

And then he kisses her just as fiercely.

 

 

Inside the apartment Manda-

 

(Monster, monster, Rupture- no, _Mando, Manda, Manda,)_

 

-laughs for the first time in years. Dante breaks off mid-sentence and smiles at her.

 

“What?”

 

“Our little brother is loved.”

 

Dante laughs.

 

“Yeah. Yeah, He is.”

 

 

“Even in winter, the cold isn’t always bitter, and not every day is cruel.” – Jim Butcher, ‘Changes’.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for Fern. And you may say Sarah are all your fics for fern now? Well, this is the OG fic for Fern that I have been trying to write for a YEAR a whole YEAR. all other fics for fern were spur of the moment and not nearly as planned as this.
> 
> In all seriousness, I came into the flash fandom mid-season 2, wrote some fic that people swarmed to enjoy, and met some nice people and the main peep I met was Fern. Oli don't remember exactly how we got to talking because I have 0 memory, but Fern was nice and decided to educate me on all the minor flash and dc characters I had missed throughout my life and I must say I loved every second. I knew about Armando before but fern really lit a fire and made me fall in love with the Ramon family in a new way as Well as reintroducing me to Malcolm Thawne and other admittedly niche characters. So this is for you Fern! Some of the references and referenced ships are unique to the convos we've had and the posts you've made, I tried to cram in as much as I could so this would ve fern centric. I hope you enjoy it because I have enjoyed our friendship.
> 
> I am buckybunnyteeth on tumblr and as you can see if you befriend me I will write niche fics for you with zero prompting.
> 
> *The title comes from Gale Song by the Lumineers song. Its a reference to the characters Gale from the Hunger games who constantly put his life on the line for his brothers. I thought it was fitting.
> 
> *also I had no beta so if I missed any mistakes it's all on me. ill fix em later.
> 
> Tell me what you think! Did you get the references?


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